Kuchel v. Warden
Filing
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OPINION AND ORDER: For the reasons set forth in this Opinion and Order, the Court ORDERS the parties to file responses to this Order by 11/7/2018. Signed by Judge Philip P Simon on 10/11/18. (Copy mailed to pro se party)(ksp)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA
SOUTH BEND DIVISION
CHARLES KUCHEL,
Petitioner,
v.
CAUSE NO.: 3:17-CV-871-PPS-MGG
WARDEN,
Respondent.
OPINION AND ORDER
Charles Kuchel, a prisoner without a lawyer, filed a habeas corpus petition under
28 U.S.C. § 2254 but I will construe it as having been filed under § 2241 because he is
challenging the calculation of his sentences. Kuchel was convicted in state court for
criminal deviate conduct, criminal recklessness, criminal confinement, and battery
under Cause No. SCR 83-47 and for criminal confinement and criminal deviate conduct
under Cause No. SCR 83-43. The Warden says that Kuchel’s petition should be tossed
because he did not exhaust his remedies through the Indiana courts or the Department
of Correction and that the Department of Correction correctly calculated Kuchel’s
projected release date.
Let’s start with the exhaustion issue. It is true that Kuchel did not exhaust his
administrative remedies, but it is also true that exhaustion is not statutorily required for
Section 2241 petitions. See McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140, 144 (1992); Clemente v.
Allen, 120 F.3d 703, 705 (7th Cir.1997). “In determining whether exhaustion is required,
federal courts must balance the interest of the individual in retaining prompt access to a
federal judicial forum against countervailing institutional interests favoring
exhaustion.” McCarthy, 503 U.S. at 146. “Administrative remedies need not be pursued
if the litigant’s interests in immediate judicial review outweigh the government’s
interests in the efficiency or administrative autonomy that the exhaustion doctrine is
designed to further.” Id. Here, after consideration of the arguments, I find that Kuchel’s
habeas claim presents an element of immediacy that weighs against requiring him to
exhaust administrative remedies at this time.
Kuchel tells me that his current term of incarceration arises from two convictions.
On October 19, 1984, the Marshall Superior Court sentenced Kuchel to fifty years of
incarceration for Cause No. SCR 83-43. ECF 16-1 at 4. On March 17, 1988, the Marshall
Superior Court sentenced Kuchel in Cause No. SCR 83-47 to seventy years of
incarceration to be served concurrently with his sentence in Cause No. SCR 83-43. ECF
12-8. The parties agree that Kuchel has completed his sentence for Cause No. SCR 83-43,
so that the sentence calculation for that conviction is not contested. However, the parties
dispute the Department of Correction’s calculation of the projected release date of
December 12, 2019, for Cause No. SCR 83-47.
Kuchel argues that he should have been released from custody on October 20,
2009. He bases this date on a Change of Commitment form from the Department of
Correction, which indicates that this date is his projected release date for Cause No.
SCR 83-47. ECF 16-1 at 3. Candidly, I don’t even know what a “Change of
Commitment” form even is. Absent any explanation as to how the October 2009 date
was calculated, this document is of minimal value to the sentence calculation inquiry,
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and it is unclear whether this document bears any legal significance. Without a more
robust explanation, I cannot conclude at this point that Kuchel is entitled to habeas
relief.
I am equally baffled by the Warden’s response. The Warden tells me that
Kuchel’s projected release date is December 12, 2019. According to the Warden, the
methodology to calculate a projected release date is to start with the date of arrest and
to assume that, pursuant to Ind. Code § 35-50-6-3, the prisoner receives one day of good
time credit for each day of his or her imprisonment. In other words, the projected
release date calculation presumes that prisoners will serve only half of their sentences.
So far, so good. But when doing the math, something does not add up. The record
reflects that Kuchel was first arrested on December 11, 1983. Recall that his combined
sentence is seventy years. If I take the Warden’s representations at face value –
prisoners serve one-half their time – then Kuchel’s release date should be December 12,
2018, not December 12, 2019. (December 11, 1983 plus 35 years – half of 70 years – takes
us to December 12, 2018). ECF 12-7 at 1-4; ECF 12-8. The Warden does not address this
one-year discrepancy, and I can find no explanation in the record.
In sum, the explanations for Kuchel’s projected release date are lacking on both
sides. Kuchel does not offer any explanation as to why he believes the projected release
date from the Change of Commitment form is correct. Likewise, the Warden does not
explain the one-year discrepancy between the sentence calculation methodology and
the currently operative projected release date. As a result, I defer ruling on the habeas
petition and invite the parties to address these issues.
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For these reasons, the court ORDERS the parties to file responses to this Order by
November 7, 2018.
SO ORDERED on October 11, 2018.
s/ Philip P. Simon
JUDGE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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